saby art news #21 • June 2015 - Brigitte Saby

saby art news #21 • June 2015
Brigitte Saby is a tireless discoverer who surfs the ever-shifting crest between Art
and the decorative arts. Her inspiration is nourished by the ebb and flow between
Past and Present, West and East, between the ephemeral and the intemporal, and
between artistic tradition and creative buzz. But Brigitte Saby also likes to share her
coups de cœur. This newsletter invites you into her world of perpetual movement…
Art of the Bath
Titian: Susanna & The Elders – Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Facts & Sayings (15th century) – Gellert Baths, Budapest –
Cai Guo-Qiang: installation (Queens Museum of Art, 1997) – School of Fontainebleau: Portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrées & the Duchesse
de Villars – Marisa Berenson in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975) – Ito Shinsui: Woman Washing her Hair –
Pierre Bonnard: Marthe in the Bath-Tub (photograph)
References / From Public Baths to the Privacy of the Bath-Tub
Baths, paradoxically, are intimate but not always private – much to the delight of artists
and art-lovers…
The beautiful Susanna, ogled by the Elders, bathed and dressed in an idyllic orchard
setting. In the Middle Ages, steam baths were places both of hygiene and hedonistic
social life. The thermal bath tradition, inherited from Antquity, engendered splendid
architecture throughout Europe. In Asia, the tradition of Public Baths continues to thrive.
During the Renaissance, although the classical world was greatly admired, taking a bath
was an event worthy of painting – as in this ‘churching’ bath scene (evoked by the baby
held by the servant) with two beautiful women in their royal apartments. Enlightenment
aristocrats would receive their family and close associates around the bath, as in this
splendid scene by Barry Lyndon. In the 19th century, servants filled bath tubs with warm
water; later, more democratically, ladies did this for themselves. One’s toilette definitively
became a private matter, but artists and photographers are never far away!
New / Times of Beauty
The ancient world, with its goddesses and empresses, remains a powerful source of
inspiration in portraying the rites of beauty: the effects of wet clothing; richly decorated thermal baths; delicate amphoras; perfumed oils... In the world of cosmetics,
the pleasures of ‘slow’ beauty are celebrated with concentrated oils – take the cult bath
oil Youth-Dew, which first appeared in 1953 before becoming a best-selling perfume.
Dior’s J’adore has its own bath oil version. We are rediscovering the pleasures of soap
– take the charming Korean brand Lyanature, whose soaps come in tiny earthenware
boxes, with sachets to help them gently foam. Access to water and baths remains a
mark of the élite: an Emirates PR campaign is based on the chic appeal of a private
showers for First Class passengers.
Birth of Aphrodite from the Ludovisi Throne, revisited by Francesco Vezzoli with Eva Mendes for Harper’s Bazaar – Armand Rateau:
Jeanne Lanvin’s Bathroom – Estée Lauder: Youth-Dew Bath Oil (1953) – Dior: J’adore bath oil (2014) – soaps by Lyanature, Seoul –
Emirates advertisement for Private Suite showers (Vogue India)
Baths in the World of Saby-Art Style
Although the traditional banya continues to thrive in Russia, the climate also generates
a demand for the highest standards of comfort, and bathrooms can be veritable Beauty
Salons – spaciously conceived by Brigitte Saby, with subtly co-ordinated colours and
materials… Photos by Anaïs Wulf.
Paris News:
La Toilette – Naissance de l’intime From the Renaissance to the 20th
century: an exhibition on the timeless
theme of women and the bath runs
at the Musée Marmottan Monet
until 5 July 2015.
The reopening of the mythical
Paris night-spot Les Bains
in Rue du Bourg-l’Abbé – still with
its celebrated pool…
Artefact Décoration
3, avenue Victor Hugo
75116 Paris - France
tél +33 (0)1 40 67 96 06
fax + 33 (0)1 40 67 96 07
[email protected]
www.brigittesaby.com
Conception
Brain for Beauty
Wolkoff et Arnodin